The Girl I Left Behind Me
by headintheclouds777
Summary: July 1781. Maggie Armstrong is a plantation girl from a family of Patriots. When forced to quarter Redcoats, Maggie discovers Tory militia are set to ambush Washington's dragoons, one of which is her brother, on their way to Yorktown. Fearing for his life, Maggie rides to warn them. Maggie knew she would see war. But she never expected to fall in love in the process. Ben x OC


**I've gotten impatient waiting for Season 4, especially since the release date and new trailer were released, so this happened. Because this story takes place after Season 3, I am flying a bit blind. I've done a bit of research to try to determine where Washington's troops actually were during this time (assuming our heroes go with him), but I can hardly imagine it will be perfect. More likely than not, it won't be, but hey, I tried. Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, I hope you enjoy my story. This is my very first one that I've felt good enough to share. (:**

 **~Emma**

* * *

 _~July 1781. Charles City County, Virginia.~_

 _Dear Maggie,_

 _The days have been long and hard, though I am glad to have finally returned to Virginia after these past three years. Being so close to you and Mother and Father and Lydie and not being able to see you is unbearable in its own right. However I take comfort in knowing you are all safe and well, for I have seen so many others in New England who were not so fortunate._

 _We have camped at Berkeley for a time. The Harrisons have been excellent hosts. I hope that I may escape soon and come south to see you, if only for a few hours. Pass on my love to the others, and tell-_

Pounding on the front door ripped Maggie's concentration from her brother's letter. Between the torchlight dancing in the sticky, summer Virginia air outside and her usually stoic father's trembling voice answering the door, she didn't have to see who had come to know who they were.

Redcoats.

Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she barely heard her father asking them inside. With shaking hands she folded up Jacob's letter, quietly slipping it between the chair cushions. If the Redcoats found that letter - if they discovered her family were Patriots or, even worse, that Continentals were camped only fifteen miles away - Lord only knew what they would do.

She'd heard the horror stories from her neighbors. She didn't want tonight to turn into one.

"Maggie? What's going on?"

Lydia, Maggie's little sister, had come in the room behind her, her bright blue eyes wide as the saucers propped on the mantle behind her. "Maggie, is it-"

"Go back to the kitchen, Lydie. Tell Mother and Ruth. Quick!"

Nervously the girl ran out the back of room, just as the first Redcoat officer was passing through the front. Maggie's green eyes bugged.

"Colonel Williamson," Maggie's father Thomas started. "This is my daughter, Margaret. She will show you to your rooms for the night."

Colonel Williamson tipped his hat. "A pleasure, Miss Armstrong. We are in your debt."

Though the words were meant as a compliment and were most likely genuine, Maggie couldn't shake the unease that crept over her heart as he smiled at her. She managed a shaky curtsey.

"This way," she whispered, forcing a smile of her own as she left the room and went up the stairs. Every step she took - the farther away from her father she got - the tighter her stomach flipped over itself.

"Just around the corner, sirs," she informed, trying to sound as hospitable as possible. "Take any you like."

Colonel Williamson smiled faintly. "You are most kind."

 _Aye,_ Maggie thought. _Of course I am. You'd stick me with that bayonet if I wasn't._

Williamson opened the door to Maggie's room and stepped inside. He set his belongings down in a corner - musket, other weapons, and a currier's satchel included - and came back out, gently shutting the door behind him. Frozen, Maggie stared at him as he emerged, hoping he couldn't hear her loudly pounding heart. Williamson held a hand out and nodded towards the stairs.

"After you, Ms. Armstrong."

The words were hardly out of his mouth before Maggie started back downstairs, where her father had been waiting and watching for her keenly. Lydia stood behind him, peaking out around him as if she were hiding behind one of the massive oaks outside. Thomas quietly nodded as the officers descended.

"My wife and housemaid are preparing dinner," he informed as he led them into the dining room. "Our farmhand is seeing to your horses. In the meantime, gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable."

The officers settled in around the table, the candle light heating their coats to the color of blood. Soon her mother Elizabeth and Ruth, the housemaid, came in from the kitchen, carrying all sorts of wonderful-smelling food with them. A worried frown wrought into her face, Maggie helped them serve the officers. Every time she got close to one, her skin crawled.

Jacob could have tried to kill any of these men. Any of these men could have tried to kill Jacob. And here they were, providing for _them._ Helping _them_ with _their_ cause. But there was nothing else to be done, unless she wanted the plantation torched, crops, livestock and slaves stolen, her father killed and Lord only knew what thrust upon Elizabeth, Lydia, and herself.

Once supper had been served, Maggie retreated back to parlor. Her eyes flicked to the chair where she had hidden the letter, then back to the dining room behind her. She watched her parents, her sister, Ruth. How easily they all conversed with the men who fought for a cause the entire Armstrong household had come to resent. The Redcoats, for their part, had not been entirely impolite themselves, thanking Thomas and Elizabeth every chance they got. Maggie soon began to think that maybe they weren't as bad as everyone made them out to be.

Then her parents left and the spirits came out, and all at once their tongues started to wag.

Battles. Blood. Carnage, marches, black powder. Hell on Earth. And instead of being the chosen people trapped on the river banks waiting for their Moses to dip his staff into the water, they were the blackhearts in pursuit.

How could someone be proud of sending a musketball through a boy who couldn't yet shave?

"And, lads," Williamson went on, an unsettling gleam in his eyes. Whether or not it was brought on by the rum or some hidden devil inside of him Maggie wasn't sure. "Soon we'll get our chance again. Our scouts have reported strong Continental movement to the north, on a plantation on the road to Richmond called Berkeley."

Maggie's blood ran cold. Again her eyes wandered over to the chair where the letter was hidden.

Someone had to warn them.

"Our militia has lined that road. Any rebels trying to march that way will be trapped by them, and we will finish them off. The report was delivered to me moments before we came here..."

Maggie's breath shortened. The currier's satchel. The full scout's report would be in there, and if she could take it to Washington...

Slowly Maggie edged out of the room where she had been hiding and slipped up the stairs. Careful not to make any noise, she cracked open Colonel Williamson's door and tiptoed inside. There by the bed was the satchel. With trembling hands she grabbed it, pawing through the papers until she came across the dispatch in question.

Footsteps. Coming down the hallway. Quickly she shoved the dispatch in her pocket and replaced the currier's satchel where it had been on the floor. A doorknob rattled. Seeing no other option, she dove under the bed, watching the door for it to open.

It didn't.

The sound must have come from down the hallway. Sighing with relief, Maggie crawled out from her hiding spot, smoothed the front of her petticoats, and slipped out the door. As she tiptoed back down the stairs - the paper crinkled in her pocket with every step she took - she could faintly hear the Redcoat's conversation in the next room.

"...and then, perhaps before this horrible conflict is over, we can give them one last pounding for good measure."

"That would certainly clear _my_ conscience, Colonel. Then we would not be returning to England in total shame..."

She snuck to the front door. She'd gotten about halfway through it when she was stopped.

"Maggie?" Lydia hissed. "What are you doing?"

Maggie only lifted a finger to her mouth in response. "Go back to bed, Lydie," she whispered back.

"But-"

" _Go_."

Recoiling, Lydia frowned fearfully as Maggie disappeared through the door, Lydia's worried, pale blue stare vanishing behind it as it clicked shut. As she slid down the front stairs, she peaked over her shoulder at the house, a bit of the tension in her chest ebbing as she spotted the officers still around the table, talking as if nothing had happened.

As if someone wasn't about to reveal them.

The front door handle turned. Maggie made out a hint of a red coat lingering on the other side of it, and the sight sent her sprinting to the stable. Their big cart horse nickered from the pasture as she ran past. Once he started trotting alongside of her - he must have thought she had brought him something - she had to fight not to stop and pat his neck for a moment.

 _No, Lancer. I can't take you, my friend. It's a near twenty miles to Berkeley, and you're not fast enough._

She looked over her shoulder at the officer's horses. Josiah, one of the farmhands, wove in and out between them, removing saddles and brushing the sweat out of the horses' coats. A few were still saddled.

 _But one of them might be._

"Josiah!" she softly called, ducking out of the lantern light as she came over.

"Miss Maggie?" Josiah's brow wrinkled in confusion.

She now stood next to the nearest horse, stroking its neck and letting it sniff her a bit before swinging herself up into the saddle. The stirrups were a bit long for her and she had only ever ridden side-saddle before, but she would have to manage.

"Maggie! What on Earth-"

"They've planted an ambush up by Berkeley, Josiah. Jacob's up there. As they come south, they'll run right into the trap if they're not warned-"

"And _you_ think you're the one that needs to be doing that?" Josiah retorted.

Maggie patted her pocket. "I've the dispatch that says so right here. I need to go. Now."

Josiah grabbed the horse's reins. "Begging your pardon, Miss Maggie, but I can't let you do that. What would your papa say if I let you run off like this?"

"But Jacob, Josiah! He could be-"

"He's a dragoon, Miss Maggie. Been through Monmouth, Trenton, Valley Forge. If he can survive all that, I'm sure he can look after himself-"

"Even the best can be overrun, Josiah." She yanked the reins out of his hand and told the horse to walk. "Just ask Major Tallmadge. I can't let Jacob be one of them." She sent the horse up to a canter. "Pray for me."

She could hear Josiah running after. "Miss Maggie!" he called. " _Maggie!_ "

As the horse sped away, she looked over her shoulder. Her father had run out to meet Josiah as soon as he'd heard him calling, and the last thing she saw before disappearing up the road was his silhouette in the door.

For his sake, she hoped the Redcoats didn't notice their missing mount until the morning.


End file.
